Ties to the Land

Iowa is about the land and nature and people taking pride in what we do with our lives.

D. Shribman, winter, 1996

As we edge closer to the twenty-first century, American families and young people continue to leave agriculture as they have during past decades. A century ago, most Americans had ties to the land through their own lives and those of immediate kin. Now only one in fifty is engaged in farming, and little more than a fourth live in rural communities. This historic movement off the land has been driven by many factors, but especially by technological advances that have markedly enhanced productivity. More recently, global economic competition has reduced the profit margin of farm products and undermined rural wages. The growing appeal of urban commerce is weakening the vitality of local commerce, adding more incentives for young people to seek their future in urban centers.

In these diverse ways, a new world has come to the rural Midwest at century's end, to its families and children—a world in which members of the younger generation must seek a future outside of agriculture, with few exceptions, and often in distant places. A new world foretells new lives among those who make their way in it. The story of such change, of new lives in a new world, is recorded in patterns and trends, yet rural communities continue to rely upon the resourcefulness of a small number of farm families, their leadership, social involvement, and economic resources.

Are resourceful pathways for rural young people associated in any way with the social resourcefulness of families, especially of families still engaged in farming? To answer this question, we focus on rural Iowa, a region that suffered mightily in the Great Farm Crisis of the 1980s. The state lost a higher proportion of its citizens through outmigration than any other midwestern state across the decade. The number of farms has declined significantly since the 1960s, and the average surviving farm has grown in size. Most Iowans in the last century operated farms. Today little more than one-tenth run farms, though most rural Iowans have some connection to agriculture. Despite this change and the correlated economic hardship of rural communities, Iowa's children continue to rank among the very best on school success indicators compared to children in other states.

The historic economic problems of family farming were magnified by the 1980s Great Farm Crisis that hit the American Midwest with a force that will long be remembered. It was, indeed, the Great Depression all over again. By the mid-1980s, the Iowa landscape was littered with the casualties of this crisis, symbolized at times on courthouse lawns by a white cross for each lost farm. Across the countryside, seventy-five banks had closed, plus several hundred retail stores, and some fifteen hundred service stations. By the early 1990s, the construction industry was still down by 40 percent from the late 1970s. Businesses had boarded-up windows, and "for sale" signs appeared on the main streets of towns across the state. Good jobs and employment of any kind were difficult to find in small towns. Prompted by such limitations, people began leaving rural counties at a rate as high as 20 percent during the decade. The entire state lost nearly 5 percent of its population during the 1980s. Everyone knew someone who had left for other places, but especially young people.

Population losses of this magnitude posed drastic consequences for rural communities. The economic cost was most obvious in terms of declining jobs, sales, and taxes. An Iowa businessman noted that he had "watched business after business after business go out. We've lost industry. There hasn't been anything left unaffected by this." Mounting social costs also threatened the quality of community life, as in the breakdown of families, a reduction of students for the local school, and the loss of parents to provide leadership in civic, church, and school associations and functions. Many rural communities had to abandon local schools through consolidation and experienced the financial crises of local stores, churches, and social services as well. As in other times and places, the young people who left home were typically among the most able.

These economic and social costs are particularly evident in the departure of farm families, the economic and social foundation of rural life. Farm families generate the critical social capital, the relationships and working arrangements, that make communities desirable places in which to live and raise a family. They are typically characterized by shared goals and common activities. Parents and children in farm families do more activities together, in the family and centered in the community, than do urban families. Farm children are also counted on to a greater extent—they are more involved in activities that other family members value and rely upon. Children and young people on family farms are expected to do their part. Such an environment is likely to produce the discipline and competency necessary for a successful life.

Farm families in the Midwest frequently assemble in community associations to achieve common goals, such as a stronger school system, an effective youth group, or improved roads and health care. The typical farmer belongs to several voluntary associations or cooperatives. Leadership for the common good is a responsibility of farm families, in particular, and such actions satisfy norms of social obligation and stewardship. In these rural farm communities, effective social relations among people who have contact with children represent social capital that fosters personal qualities of competence. Adults with working relationships of mutual trust can share observations about children and enforce norms and goals. Social engagement for community goals is especially common among farm families such as those of German ancestry in which generational succession is important, a prominent cultural theme of rural midwestern communities.

With these qualities in mind, some observers question whether rural depopulation will alter our national character. "What about the beliefs and value systems that have been associated with life on the land? Will Americans be able to establish an acceptable value system that rests on life in cities, perhaps symbolized by concrete and neon lights?" Is the rapidly shrinking number of farm families symptomatic of a great...